As others have been quick to clarify, this kind of derogatory talk is common among U.S. servicemen and women, and in my case at least, I was first introduced to it at boot camp, where recruits were regularly spurred on to “kill a hajji.”

Even at Officer Candidate School and the The Basic School, where counterinsurgency theory is actually taught to the officer class as something more than a check in the box, such sentiments reared their ugly heads among candidates and young lieutenants, as well as numerous NCO instructors. And the language and worldview only thickens after entry-level training. Once the boots see a deployment, whatever idealistic residue they brought with them into country is stripped away. Especially after they serve a month with a ragtag bunch of complacent Afghan soldiers, or more poignantly, after they witness a friend lose a limb or depart into seven pieces, and then return to base to find their ANA counterparts passing around a joint or a syringe.

Read More | “Sergeant Bales and the Cultural Contradictions of Late Imperialism” | Lyle Jeremy Rubin | My River City Blues